New Deputy Minister reaches out via FB

Read this story on the Star about how the new Deputy Higher Education Minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, is using facebook to reach out to his 'constituents'.

The Star reported that:

"University students who wish to bring up grievances regarding their tertiary institutions can do so by directly contacting Deputy Higher Education Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah through Facebook. Datuk Saifuddin said that he will be live on the social networking website on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, from 10 to 11 pm."

I applaud the new Deputy Minister for Higher Education for using the internet and social networking sites such as facebook to reach out to students at the tertiary level. I'm a little bit more skeptical as to how effective going 'live' on facebook will be since the chat function on FB isn't really very good.

I think the new Deputy Minister deserves close attention. I've been aware of him ever since M Bakri Musa wrote a review about a book Saifuddin had written entitled: Politik Baru: Mematangkan Demokrasi Malaysia. English version: New Politics: Towards A Mature Malaysian Democracy.

Back then, Saifuddin was the Deputy Minister for Entrepreneur and Cooperative Development, a ministry which no longer exists after the announcement of Najib's new cabinet.

A cursory google search reveals that Saifuddin has been an active blogger since August 2008 and also maintains a website. His profile page mentions that he is a UM graduate and an MCKK boy.

Not many ministers or cabinet ministers in Malaysia would know or heard of C K Prahalad but Saifuddin not only mentions Pralahad in one of his blog entries but seems to also have read one of his books. (He mentions Prahalad in the context of promoting entrepreneurialism among university students)

While the Minister of Higher Education is still Khaled Nordin, whom I've not been terribly impressed by, it gives me some hope that he has an able deputy in someone like Saifuddin. He's off to a good start. Let's see if his position as Deputy Minister for Higher Education will translate into any substantive changes in terms of policy in our public and private universities.